Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

The days of independent 'arthouse' movie theaters are, sadly, mostly a thing of the past unless you live in a market that can support one. This film would certainly land there if there were any. I was rapt with the story , cinematography . . . And . . . Acting. Some of the shot set ups are remarkedly artistic and original. The main character, a young child is in practically every shot and scene and could not be more believable in that portrayal and you are always seeing things from her point of view and nothing is ever hyped or remotely artificial. I hesitated to give the movie eight stars only because I reserve that for only the very best and special kind of movies but this one is at that level because everything and I mean everything works and it is great story on a deeply human level. No one is pigeon holed , you can relate to anyone of them. Not Hollywood ,studio fare, best movie I have seen in quite some time.

Greetings again from the darkness. It might seem dangerous or even cruel to look at war through the eyes of a child. However, this time, it's a brilliant approach because most of the story is personal ... following the villagers on the edges of the Rhodesian Bush War - a Civil War meant to overthrow White colonialism and restore power to the local Black populace. Long admired for her acting career, Embeth Davidtz takes on the director's chair for the first time, and also adapted the screenplay from Alexandra Fuller's best-selling 2001 memoir.

It's 1980 in Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe) and a revolution is occurring, pending the upcoming election ... you are likely familiar with Robert Mugabe, long-time President and Prime Minister of the country. For this story, Bobo (stunning work from first time actor Lexi Venter) is our protagonist and narrator. She's a curious and observant 8-year-old with a free spirit and a constantly dirty face. The POV of a kid makes sense once you learn that director Davidtz had a childhood in South Africa with many similarities to what Bobo experiences (it is Alexandra Fuller's memoir after all).

Bobo's big sister Vanessa (Anina Hope Reed) and their mother Nicola (director Davidtz) share the home with Bobo. Dad is a soldier and is often away for extended periods of time. Nicola sleeps with a rifle and obsessively guards the family's farmland, while desperately hoping the Whites don't lose power in the country. Bobo spends a good amount of time with Sarah (Zikhona Bali), who becomes a pseudo-mother, filling the emotional gap left by Nicola's alcoholism, and brewing breakdown over the possible changes coming.

As you would expect, racism is on display here. It supports the theory that racism is passed down from generation to generation. Bobo is warned to "watch out for terrorists", which is another word for black Africans, while Sarah's husband Jacob (Fumani N Shilubana) is regularly warning his wife about getting too close to Bobo or being seen in public with the white girl. Bobo is blatantly told that Africans and Whites are not the same.

Watching young Bobo trying to make sense of the world can be uncomfortable to watch, yet it drives home the point about racism, violence, and growing up in a war. Sarah does her best to guide the youngster, but that parental force can be quite strong. Obviously, this was a personal film for first-time director Embeth Davidtz, and she shows the right stuff with her first feature film. We understand the family wanting to hold onto their land, while at the same time we witness how racism can be spread so easily ... and at such a young age.

Opening in theaters on July 18, 2025.

This film doesn't hold back any punches depicting White racism and black oppression and the violence of the times. An excellent realistic depiction of both white and black southern Africa at that time, where white southern Africans were driven into a corner in the country they had had ruled for decades from a legacy of European imperialism, where they too end up being victims of their own culture. This was all perfectly portrayed and captured an accurate time capsule of modern African history. Brilliant acting by Ms Venter who plays the free spirited young protagonist whose unvarnished and unrelenting view of the world she inhabits brings into conflict with everyone around her. Her performance is completely natural and powerful and drives the narrative with complete authenticity.

It's difficult to review a film like this because it wants you to feel bad for it's characters but they're all kind of terrible people. Fantastic acting from all parties involved but I think a few of the scripts issues that makes this movie more trashy than it needed to be.

There is a very uncomfortable scene that happens towards the middle of the film that really did not need to be there. It's only glaced upon once more in the film and it did nothing for the story. If you've seen it, you know what I mean.

There's also a simplicity to this story that felt like it only got skin deep for me. The political climate in that part of the world is volatile to say the least, but the film doesn't really show enough of that to make us feel like real danger is looming. Just some couple who are loosing their farm to the native people of that land. Interesting, but not as deep or thoughtful as it could've been.

Overall, not a bad film, but not a particularly good one either. The film seems to wallow in this pit of a crappy childhood as opposed to the realism of the danger these people put themselves in and the lack of care for the native people of that land. Personally, for me, it dragged the film down and made what should've been a hard hitting story into something that was difficult to relate to.

2.5 dogs out of 5.

Embeth Davidtz has had a good career as an actor. I first became aware of her as Miss Honey in Danny DeVito's movie of MATILDA, in which she was warm and endearing without a trace of sentimentality -- quite an achievement. Next time I encountered her was in JUNEBUG in which presented a completely different but equally believable character. It was evident that she was a high-quality artist. But nothing could have prepared me for how brilliant she is as a mother at the end of her tether in this excellent movie. Not only that; she directed and co-wrote it.

Her major triumph as a director is to bring out from young Lexi Venter a tough and beguiling performance. The whole story is seen through her character's eyes, so everything rests on her, and she totally delivers under Ms Davittz's expert guidance.

The movie is based on a memoir by Alexandra Fuller, who is the film's co-writer with Ms Davitdz. It tells of Ms Fuller's experiences as a child observing the process of her settler-colonial parents and their neighbours facing up to (or, in most cases, not facing up to) the return of the land that had been acquired in what had been Rhodesia to the newly-independent nation of Zimbabwe. The counterpointing of the political and domestic in Ms Fuller's story is its great strength, and director Davidtz makes it the spine of the film.

There's terrific support from the whole cast, with a special shout out to Zihkona Bali as Sarah, a worker in the colonial household who finds herself at the centre of a storm.

I really can't recommend this film highly enough. Please see it.